Senate Immigration Bill Makes Citizenship Irrelevant

May 29, 2007

RUSH: I have a question here. How many of the illegals actually to want become citizens versus how many of them just want to become legal? Well, it’s important to know, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll delve into this as soon as we play the Star-Spangled Banner, the Star Spanglish Banner actually we call it here. This is by Jos&eacute; and the Illegals. Not required that you stand.

(Playing of Star Spanglish Banner.)

The Star Spanglish Banner there, a cappella version by Jos&eacute; and the Illegals. All right. (Laughing.)

How many illegals want to become citizens, how many of them just want to become legal? It’s important to know, and it’s the question nobody asks about illegal immigration. How many of them want to become citizens versus just want to become legal? Senator Kennedy, you’re the expert on immigration. Perhaps you could tell us? Senator McCain, you know more about the issue than F-ing anyone else. Maybe you could tell us. How many illegals want to become citizens and how many just want to become legal? And, by the way, round numbers. We don’t have to make this that specific. I’ll tell you why I ask this, because it shows there are quite a few questions we should ask and quite a few answers we should have before we dive headlong into what they are calling immigration reform. And, by the way, I said dive headlong rather than rush headlong because I don’t want my name to become an issue in this, folks. I know it’s rush headlong. I put dive, keep me out of this. How many illegals want to become legal? We don’t know the breakdown so let’s use the wisdom of Solomon. Let’s split the illegals in half. Let’s say half of them want to become citizens and half want to become only legal. What does this new bipartisan bill propose? Well, it proposes a new ID card, the Z visa. It makes illegals legal overnight, something that very few people are talking about. The $5,000 fine, that’s only applicable if the illegals seek citizenship. But if they don’t seek citizenship there’s no $5,000 fine, there’s no heading back to the home country to get back in line.

So if this bill becomes law as written, yesterday illegal, today legal, shazam. There’s no so-called road to citizenship here, no alleged eight- to 13-year wait, there’s no steep fine, whether it’s 5,000 or $500 does not affect them. There’s no touchback, meaning heading to the back of the line. There is no line because they’re legal! I know I’ve been making this point for the past week, but I wanted to illustrate it in this fashion. What does citizenship mean? Citizenship is irrelevant to this. While the Drive-By Media focused on a distracting debate — is it amnesty or is not amnesty, is it anti-immigration or is it xenophobia — the reality is that all illegals become legal whether they opt for citizenship or not. The question we have to ask now, do Senator Kennedy and Senator McCain know this? Was Senator Kennedy wrong for the ninth time in 42 years on this issue? Yet he’s held up as the elite expert, the lion who’s making sure his final days are being put to the best use possible, for the goodness of America. He’s been wrong on this nine times. Was Senator McCain outfoxed like he was with campaign finance reform?

Now, if you are for this alleged reform, the least you could do to make your case is to say that these uneducated, unskilled illegals are one heck of a lot smarter than some of our best and brightest senators. Maybe our guys should jump the border, pick up some street smarts on the other side, and then come back. Who’s outfoxing who here? You might be saying, ‘Well, Rush, what’s it matter? What’s the big deal, path to citizenship?’ Well, path to citizenship means that you want to become an American. It means that you’re interested in assimilating in the great American culture, becoming part of it and expanding it, passing it on to your own family, your kids and so forth. If you just want to become legal, then there’s no assimilation, there’s no desire to, quote, unquote, become Americans, be here legal so you don’t have the sigma of being illegal. This whole business of the rule of law, people are trying to pooh-pooh this illegal — ah, the Drive-Bys and the elites, politicians are all saying, ‘We’re not going to deport 12 million people, gotta fix this somehow. Illegal, that’s a bad way to look at it.’ No, it’s not. No, it’s not.

When you grant 12, 20 million, whatever the number, a virtual exemption from American law in one regard, then you are just telling them that they’re exempt from a number of other laws that they might break down the road, which Heather Mac Donald has documented to be taking place in Maywood, California, 96% Latino. Let me read this. George Will. I’ll just read this to you again. ‘Affirming the rule of law is, however, where to begin because when a large and somewhat cohesive cohort succeeds in living in defiance of the law, the scofflaw spirit can have myriad manifestations. Writing in last summer’s City Journal, Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute gave a sobering example: ‘Protecting one form of lawbreaking may require protecting others as well. The city of Maywood in Los Angeles County declared itself a sanctuary zone for illegal aliens this year. Then it got rid of its drunk-driving checkpoints, because they were nabbing too many illegal aliens. Next, this 96 percent Latino city, almost half of whose adult population lacks a ninth-grade education, disbanded its police traffic division entirely, so that illegals wouldn’t need to worry about having their cars towed for being unlicensed.”

So if you’re going to say they’re illegal and you’re going to make ’em legal and you’re doing this on the basis that these are God’s people, these are salt of the earth people, these people the future of the American economy, well, if you’ve granted them legal status and they continue to break the law, you can’t have that because at some point you may have to send them back. I mean, they’ve become felons. So you gotta exempt them from all other laws. In the meantime, other Americans are being held to these very laws that the Latinos are being exempt from here in Maywood, California, and a lot of other places. Drunk driving checkpoints disbanded, no police traffic division so they don’t have to worry about their cars being towed for being unlicensed. Meanwhile, other people are being picked up and charged and put in jail for similar offenses. And you think that’s going to go down? You think the American people are going to put up with that? If you think the fireworks on this are hot and heavy now — and they are — wait until if this thing actually gets signed into law, then you’re going to see what a powder keg erupting nationwide looks like.